Although promoting citizenship is one of the major goals of education, there is not always a clear direction as to how this goal can be achieved. Schools use an arsenal of prepared programs and community service projects to promote citizenship. This large variety of programs shares at least one common element: an emphasis on active involvement. Among the various ways that New Jersey’s Cranbury School has promoted active citizenship is the development of a quarterly seventh grade course in debate.

One of the challenges faced in creating a debate course for middle school was the relative lack of “how to” resources for this age group. Although debate sometimes appears as a social studies activity, it is often in the context of arguing sides of a historical event where the students already know the outcome. Students may gain a greater understanding of historical perspectives from these activities but they are not truly challenged to reason out issues on their own. Resources specifically addressing debate techniques generally target high school students involved in formal forensics competitions. So, how can you adapt a debate format to the middle school level? And how can debate be used to promote decision-making and citizenship for young adolescents?

Benefits of Middle School Debate
When choosing a format, an adapted congressional style debate best addressed the needs of our class because of its tie-ins with our civics program. Our debate procedure starts with opening the meeting, introducing a proposal, then having first pro, first con, second pro, and second con speeches followed by a general floor debate and voting. Statements to a speaker are generally expressed in the form of a question; the guiding rule is that an idea can be questioned, but the speaker can never be personally “attacked.” Using these elements of parliamentary procedure promotes an atmosphere of mutual respect among students while exchanging ideas. Questioning speakers in an orderly manner encourages high levels of participation among even the more hesitant students. Interestingly, students who communicated better verbally than in writing found they could have high levels of success in an arena that did not require them to struggle with the mechanics of a formal research paper.

Introductory Activities
The course’s activities are divided into three stages, introductory activities, research, and debate. During this progression, students increasingly take ownership of the decision-making and debate processes. Introductory activities include defining the purpose of debate and teaching basic procedures. For example, an ice breaking “nonsense debate” is a low-pressure method of teaching the order of speaking. In this activity, students argue pro and con for an improbable law, such as setting a speed limit on lawnmowers. Students eagerly volunteer to use their most persuasive, “nonsense” arguments while learning the order of speaking. Once the students have a thorough understanding of basic procedure, they move on to brainstorming and choosing topics of their own.

Before having students select issues, you may need to discuss any limitations or guidelines on subject matter that relate to school policy. Limitations might include topics that could lead students to violate the school’s anti-bullying policies or topics that are generally discussed only with parental permission. Students also need to be reminded that a debate explores possible solutions to public issues and is not a forum for personal grievances. However, tackling controversial topics, such as underage alcohol use, can reinforce responsible, critical thinking once students begin searching for evidence.

When selecting a debate topic, middle school students may want to debate issues specific to their school or community. These concerns can be generalized to state or national issues in order to be more easily researched. For example, the desire for more cafeteria snacks could relate to the issue of the healthiness of federal school lunch nutritional guidelines. Proposing a local skateboard park could be developed into an examination of physical fitness programs or product safety.

Once an issue has been chosen, students will need to be assigned to pro or con sides. My personal experience has indicated strong advantages to random selection of pro and con speakers for an issue versus allowing the students to self-select sides. Students quickly eliminate “one sided” issues from a brainstormed list if there is a chance of being assigned to a position that has little supporting evidence. Random selection also insures a balanced number of speakers for each side. Students who draw sides contrary to their own opinion can learn to examine opposing perspectives of an issue. Finally, random assignment “protects” students who are arguing an unpopular position because their job is to examine the issue rather than to defend their own personal opinions.

Research
Once students understand basic debate procedures and acquire their assigned positions, the focus shifts to researching supporting evidence. Before looking for sources, I have found that having cooperative groups critique a variety of articles to for credibility and relevance to an issue enables them to work more efficiently when finding evidence. Although they can use a variety of print and media sources, debate is especially conducive to the use of the Internet as a research tool. Many newspapers and magazines have on-line archives, which can be searched for up to date articles, and students have access to professional journals or government resources as well. Young researchers can use news-specific search engines such as www.headlinespot.com to find evidence from news services all over the world. Our students generally found search engines such as www.google.com, www.ask.com, or www.dogpile.com to be user-friendly, while www.google.com/unclesam has the added benefit of eliminating most non-relevant sites from the search list.

Once the students find evidence related to their issue, they are guided in note taking and organizing information for their speeches. Regardless of the method chosen in preparing their speeches, it is important that the students get the material into their own words, and that they can locate their information source if their evidence is challenged by another debater. Students who have stumbled over technical terms or could not back up their evidence during questioning quickly appreciated the benefits of these organizational steps.

The Debates
A procedure for debating that is especially useful for our class was to begin with an initial class wide debate on one topic before breaking into smaller groups. Starting with a one topic debate allows for more focused lessons when first learning research, organization, and debate techniques. Later, four-person debate teams can provide the students with opportunities to select issues individualized to their own interests, while the teacher acts more as a research coach or facilitator. Students arguing the same position are encouraged to partner up to share resources, “test out” arguments, and develop speeches that complement and reinforce each other’s debates.

When the students were first learning parliamentary procedure, the teacher’s natural “authority” role was used to model the chairperson’s role. As students grow in their ability to debate, a number of them will want to extend their leadership skills by taking over as chairperson. Drawing lots was accepted as a fair method of chair selection if time constraints prevent all volunteers from getting a turn.

Evaluation
When evaluating student performance, a priority was to assess the overall performance of the students beyond their speeches. Since the course emphasis was on debate as a method of examining ideas, the debates were not graded as a competitive event. In addition to the logic and delivery of the speech itself, participation and parliamentary procedure were weighted heavily. Taking a transcript allows for revisiting and verifying key points in the students’ arguments, and providing more personalized feedback for future speeches. Additionally, the students’ research folders and notes are reviewed to determine the depth of their backup work, and to provide suggestions for future research.

Once the first debate is completed, our students also become involved in the assessment process by self-critiquing the strengths and weaknesses of their performances. After each debate, the class members specify areas that they individually would like to reinforce or improve. Progress toward these personal goals is included in the student’s assessment rubric for the following debate.

Conclusion
Used effectively, debate provides middle school students with tools for discussing, prioritizing, researching, and critically examining issues. It encourages young adolescents to speak out in a well-informed manner. Classes in debate can be structured to give further opportunities for making choices and taking ownership for student learning. Hopefully, these skills will empower students to make active, responsible decisions... The types of decisions that are essential to true citizenship.

(Carol Rogaski teaches social studies, debate, and gifted and talented classes at Cranbury School in Cranbury Township, NJ.)